Chana

I think to me the most suspicious thing about the entity is that it seems to be guiding Gavilar away from the actual words of the first ideal: And the ones that they did seem to like seemed much more Odium-like filled with passion: I've seen some speculate that the point was that the demand was close because that was the most honest Gavilar has been in this prologue but that's still odd to me. While Stormfather can be quite unhelpful it still seems weird. Since in this version of the prologue the entity is no longer promising making Gavilar a Herald it's not like they're looking for words for Gavilar to join the oathpact so the most obvious direction for me would be that they are trying to get Gavilar to be some sort of Odium knight radiant.

I find this very interesting as I didn't question any of those things when reading, its interesting how differently different people can interpret the same text. I definitely read the whole yoko-hijo thing as the investiture being what made them resistant to the machine not their personalities. I imagine them being born with this power that gives them massive pressure to serve the society results in them being strong-willed and disciplined. They are born special as marked by the omen upon their birth and then they are raised special but the key to everything is them being highly invested. As for what Yumi sees in painter I feel like its very natural for her to fall for the first person who actually treats her like human and encourages her to advocate for herself and relax from her crazy routine. They also spend a lot of time together occupying each others bodies being the only people they actually talked to for the first time in forever. It's just human to form attachments through an experience like that. They had a lot in common both being artists and feeling extremely isolated. I also don't think Painter was that horrible like he was just human who made some mistakes, I honestly expected the reveal to be much worse from how it was built up and at that point this was the least of their problems. At the end of the day most people just fall for people not because they are beacons of morality and amazing humans but because they were there for each other and because they find someone who listens and sees them for who they are. At the end of the day, a love story is sold through the writing of interactions between the characters and their chemistry and I personally found the chemistry between Yumi and Painter believable.

The conversation moved on but I’m pretty sure in the text it was said that midnight sea is at a choke point between two mountain ranges and the Sorceress blocks trade between two sides of the mountains. At some point it was mentioned that there is another way to the midnight sea but it requires going around half the planet to get around the mountain range. So I don’t think anything in text supports idea of trade off-planet

I keep coming back and forth between the Stormfather vs. Stormfaker theories. In general, I think most of the changes in the SFs approach could be explained by him being very disappointed in Gavilar, the everstorm getting closer/herald dying and then failing with some people in between prologue and WoK. However, I still find this really odd that SF would outright lie to Gavilar even if it was lie of omission or just saying something that's technically true but letting Gavilar interpret it differently as mentioned above from Syl we can gather than honorspren are really unhappy with lying and Dalinar's whole bondmith thing was about how ends don't justify the means so I don't think SF should be able to mislead without any remorse of anything like that (interesting point if there's ever an instance when Dalinar lies to someone or considers it and does SF say anything?) And there are certain sentences that others have mentioned that just don't really sound like his voice that we have known. I think it can go either way depending on what is happening in KoW in general. If all of this is Stormfather I would imagine there will be some sort of conflict/confrontation between him and Dalinar about this. I can see for example SF lying sometime early on and people catching him on that - we as readers would be then warned earlier by the prologue that he can do that. If there is a faker I am most likely to believe Cultivation just because I think she would be the most capable of pulling this off power/cunning wise and it seems like her sort of scheme. I could see some shenanigans going on with Tanavast but I feel like this would be a bit too complicated to introduce into the book now. I'm not a big fan of the Ishar theory I think its a bit convoluted but he and Dalinar are likely to spend some screen time together this book and that subplot would create an interesting dynamic between them so it could be an interesting resolution to this theory depending on how its written Also I don't know if i missed it but is there a chance that whatever Thaidakar put in motion is Chana's death? We know Ghostbloods were all in Davar household and I agree with theories that while her death might not be necessary for the desolation it might have brought it closer in time which is exactly what Thaidakar says about what they did. Oh the complicated net of events and connections Brandon created here is so fascinating, can't wait to get my hands on this book and learn more

It shouldn't be, but it was still very surprising to me how much Kaladin is worried about his dad's approval. It seemed so strange for Kaladin who usually doesn't really care about anyones opinion and rather finds people annoying, to jump so much around his father. There are clearly some issues here which I hope they resolve in part 2. I didn't mind Kaladin returning to being a surgeon but the way it happened made me sad. It was almost too familiar, just going along with his controlling parent just because he is so lost. It was just so striking to me how differently he reacts to his father compared to anyone else. He had to deal with a lot of expectations and people giving him positions and he would usually accept them but he would always complain and stuff and this one was just so.. passive on his part. He seems to revert to being a young boy again and I hope he will soon realise that he is no longer that boy and that he needs to grow. This is certainly going to be one of the more interesting dynamics and subplot of the part two.

You need to remember that the cover artists (esp. in other countries) are usually asked to draw a scene and they probably just get the description of that scene if anything. I wouldn't put too much thought into the architecture on the covers (if original polish covers are anything to go by - the armor on them was just to not-SA vibe), they might as well just have been told to draw a siege and that's what they did. Though the title of the second book (google translate says it's The tower of light correct me if its wrong) does bring to my mind Lasting Integrity and we know there will be some action going on there. Though I guess this could also refer to Uruthiru once they figure out how to turn it on. I found the person in the red cape more interesting at the beginning but then I remembered German covers always have it for some reason - is it supposed to be Kaladin?

Hmm I think Heralds (esp. Ash) still can be used as a source of information, we know from RoW that they did get some information from her and getting her PoV in OB was very interesting in my opinion. Like sure we have to kinda take her words with a grain of salt but I feel like Brandon can throw a lot of forshadowing there. Idk if you mean just Taln and Ash who seems to be staying in Uruthiru for now cause other heralds seem to be more active. We know Nale joined Odium so he'll probably be an antagonist either in this book or the next one. Ishar is probably ruling a country (sorry forgot the name) as the god-king or whatever it was so he'll probably also be a minor antagonist at some point. From Navani's prologue we know that Kalak was somewhat involved with Gavilar but honestly who knows how active it was on his side. For others we know we saw all of them on screen but it's a wild guess what they're doing. We know Pailiah was last seen in Palanaceum but I honestly have no clue what she's up to now the desolation is here. Wouldn't be surprised if GBs contacted some of them and maybe that's how we'll get them on screen.

While I don't think Lirin approving of Kal will suddenly cure him, I believe that Kaladin figuring out his relationship with his father is one of the steps for his recovery. Like it doesn't happen have to by conversation with his father but considering that they will be in the same city for some time, probably working together, that seems like a natural way to make it happen. Like if Kaladin had professional therapy, he would probably resolve the issues there but considering that this is not gonna happen he'll probably gonna end up getting help from multiple people. We can already see that Adolin seems to be helping him cope with symptoms and tries to figure out how to help him more long term. He will probably talk some more with Dalinar which will help him figure things out. Like if you can deal with depression using CBT it is possible to deal with it by having honest conversations with people and doing self-discovery on your own. Maybe not totally get rid of it but at least get it under control and make it more manageable. And that probably will be the case here cause its not like Roshar offers therapy or any medication and this problem needs to have some sort of resolution.

I'm on board with Shallan being fake from the beginning and Formless being the scarred child that stores the majority of the trauma (after all 'Shallan' wasn't aware that she killed her mother until fairly recently) but I don't really like the idea of her being the spy/the killer. She is an unreliable narrator but she literally mentions in this chapter she doesn't experience memory loss and like she already has issues with repressed memories so I think adding to that her having a different type of amnesia is just a bit too much. For her secret I'm starting to suspect she has unknowingly released an Unmade or interacted with it in some way, the hints towards a possible younger sibling seem to be a misdirection besides three times a charm is not really a rule with reveals. Once is surprising, second time also cause you don't expect the twist to repeat but then three times just becomes repetitive and predictable.

Not to get too technical but it's a bit reductive to say that his depression is due to genetics. Brandon confirmed that his depression is not magical but that doesn't make it that simple. True, considering he was depressed from such an early age he had probably genetic susceptibility but depression is practically always multifactorial and I think growing up with Lirin as father definitely contributed to that. After all, he has a very strong idea of who Kaladin should be and has been drilling that into his head from early age. I might not remember WoK that well but I don't think there was ever much discussion whenever Kaladin showed any signs he doesn't want to be a surgeon. While I don't have much issue with Lirin's pacifism on its own, it works for him but it's just how judgemental he is towards others. His world seems very black and white, and that's almost never the case in real world. But the fact he just forces Kaladin to fit into those boxes is just very hurtful to his son. I find it very ironic that a surgeon so focused with helping everyone overlooks his own son mental health so much. Like this might be a bit of a stretch but I could see Kaladin's obsession with protecting coming from the fact that he didn't fit his fathers framework so if he were to be outsideof it it should at least be for a noble reason such as protecting others and making him basically spiral into this if I'm not actively protecting someone at any moment I'm worthless kind of attitude. Hopefully they'll get some time together in Uruthiru and he'll see how broken Kaladin is and realise that he needs to stop fueling his depression.

While I don't the idea of Shallan's personality being the killer, Mraize's comment would be hilarious in that context. Like the fact that he knows and she doesn't is fascinating. I can't really find a satisfying solution to the killer though like if it's not Shallan than it would probably have to be a named character cause it would be very boring for them to just be one of the unnamed Lightweavers. Then Gaz doesn't really make sense cause we kinda know his story and I can't see him being a useful agent. Isnanah is a bit too obvious like she approached Shallan herself and is a good spy and then Red would be just kinda meh and cheapen the whole Shallan finding her crew for me. Are there any other possibilities? I can't wait for Shallan to meet Restares, though I don't know how I would feel about it being someone she knows, again timeline-wise it could be only her father I think and that is just a bit of a cheap plot twist - especially considering her truth was about killing her father

I mean yeah I'm not saying that it's a good idea or that I agree with him. It's just the whole point of diagram was to save humanity from the desolation. It's through very questionable means but still the argument that if ashspren hate humans they will want to join diagram and that's why dustbringers are most compatible seems a bit reductive to me. The whole situation is not as black and white. I always saw the comment about dustbringers being most likely to join is that they agree with ends justify the means ideology. And you have to remember that at the beginning he wanted to save basically the whole world so at that point if you genuinely believe that stopping the extinction of the entire human race can be avoided by killing some people first it's just a bit different morally. Don't get me wrong, I don't think what he did was right but sometimes there is no right choice. That being said much of that changed now that Odium saw through his plans and I am very curious how the Diagram is going to act now and how will they justify everything considering now the benefits are much much smaller

I think this is going to be explained in the Dawnshard novella

Considering that people left and right seem to be bonding spren nowadays I wouldn't say that there is that much trauma that needs to occur for one to become radiant and I'm pretty sure having as crazy childhood as Adolin had qualifies for it. Not only did his mother die, it drove his father into heavy alcoholism and then he learns that actually his father is responsible for his mums death. Would traumatize me heavily.I think that just we have a sampling bias in the fact that we just followed radiants with extreme trauma we think everyone has that and that might turn out not to be true. Though I kinda not want Adolin to become a Radiant just cause then basically everyone would be radiants. Hope he get to revive Maya and do his own thing with her. Outside of that this chapter was so amazing I forgot just how much I love Adolin and his shenanigans, couldn't stop smiling throughout the chapter.

Wasn't Diagram's goal to save humanity though? Like from what I remember from Oathbringer T wanted to make a deal with Odium that his people will be saved and then become a king of as much as possible so that as many humans are saved.

Honestly I forgot how much Kaladin is obsessed with 'protecting' cause we've been seeing him mostly in action lately and in the battlefield protecting your soldiers makes sense. But here? We all know and Kal also knows Dalinar is right yet he keeps coming up with those weird arguments. The break will do good for him, if he sees leading Windrunners in battle as the only valuable thing he really needs to take a step back and think about his life. Also I'm pretty sure Kal will eventually say the fourth ideal but it would be crazy if he just didn't. He's been painted as such a hero, the best fighter, best at Lashing and what if he just couldn't do it? Sadly it would mean he wouldn't get any character progress anymore so I doubt this would be the case but I think it would be fascinating if someone said it before him. That would break his best at being a Windrunnner streak and be intresting to see how he deals with it. That could even help him realise he can't protect everyone as he will no longer be the best if that makes sense.

While I think Sleepless make the most sense I would be very surprised that they will be introduced as such a big plot point this early on... I guess it depends on what happens in Dawnshard novella and how much Sleepless are involved there but still seems strange. Axies makes sense but idk what his introduction to the general plot would bring to the table. For the plot itself it would make the most sense to be a spren/Sibling but idk how would that happen. Maybe a Radiant who bonded a spren that's very against fabrials?

When I first read the chapter it was obvious to me that Ialai poisoned herself, there was so much focus on her drinking the wines and making Shallan drink them and then drinking the last one alone (right after literally calling it deadly) and I was very surprised Shallan didn't think of that. But I love the idea of Shallan unknowingly Soulcasting her blood - though she didn't have much experience with it, a year has passed and Jasnah did say in OB they need to train it so it's not that far fetched she's alright at it. Though I feel then it would be mentioned in passing earlier to forshadow it or something. While Isnah would be a likely candidate for GB spy - having her say that she knows a thing or two about poisons literally right after poisoning someone is a bit on the nose. And then since Shallan made her look for clues, we wouldn't get full picture of the situation and it'd be just annoying. It still is a possibility but I don't want that to happen. It would be fun if it turned out that multiple people killed Ialai at the same time. As in, she drank poison herself cause she was trying to escape a possibly more painful death Restares/Mraize might give her - she was sure she's going to die anyway. And the Shallan added more poison to her blood cause Veil wanted to/the fourth persona did it. And on top of that GB poisoned her when she was restrained. I also find it surprising Mraize keeps giving her assignments that align with what Dalinar wants, like I get the idea at the beginning to kinda lure her in, telling her to do stuff she would do anyway but it's been ages, you'd think by know she would get like a proper assignment. As for her going on a downward spiral I really hope it doesn't affect her relationship with Adolin too much. My boy deserves some happiness. It might be wishful thinking but after all not all mental problems have to put a strain on a relationship, depends on the nature of the problem and if she's going to struggle mostly with her past and things like that, he might be actually very helpful with that and provide support - probably not but a girl can dream

For Gavilar I like the idea of him becoming a cognitive shadow. I feel like this is something 100% achievable for him and could align with his goal of becoming immortal. It might be what he meant when he said that 'Thaidakar is too late' - though it might also just refer to the fact that he already put the plan in motion by giving the sphere to Eshonai. Similarly, all of the talk about how he wants to become something more, something eternal and how Navani says it's seems impossible how a man like that could just die might be there to give readers the idea than he might not be fully gone but it also might just be expanding on his character and what effect he had on people. If he turns out not to be gone it's a great bit of foreshadowing, I personally never before thought he might not be fully dead but it's not like now it's confirmed but the idea is there. I also like the idea of (if he's out there) him becoming Odium's champion. Like I'm certain it's not sth Odium has been planning since he's been grooming Dalinar for a very long time and I think Gavilar's assassination was part of that grooming considering how deeply it affected Dalinar and was the catalyst that made him visit Nightwatcher. But now that this plan has failed and if Gavilar is still out there in the cognitive realm probably quite dissapointed in how his existance as cognitive shadow has been, he might be a good replacement. Promises of power and a better form of immortality might be enough to sway him to Odium's side - but again, the familiarity remark from Dalinar might foreshadow that or might foreshadow almost any other character becoming the Champion. Also, this Gavilar we see in the conversation with Navani seems very different from the Gavilar from Dalinar's perspective at a time, who was reading The Way of Kings and calling people to follow the codes. Saying such cruel things to your wife seems kinda not in spirit with Nohadon's teachings. Makes me wonder if it was not only Navani who was pretending in this chapter - though idk if saying those things just to push her away (to protect her? or because he couldn't fully trust her and he couldn't jeopardize his mission?) wouldn't be against the line of Bondsmith reasoning that ends don't justify the means. I know each Knight Radiant can understand the ideals a bit different but this seems like a very big dissonnance. He tells Eshonai he needs a threat that will unite the Alethi and I don't fully understand how his work with the 'box' is connected to this. Like he might have gotten Ulim and/or voidlight from it which gave him a way to put the Desolation in motion but it seems his main goal is the transportation in and out of Roshar - or is he just playing the heralds to get from them what he needs to get the threat? I found this new side of him very interesting and I'm quite glad we now have a week to mull it over before we move on to the action in the current time.

The way I see Jasnah is that she just doesn't consider beings with a lot of power to be worthy of worship. Like the fact that there is or was somewhere some being that would influence the people that prayed to it and require stuff from them in exchange she doesn't see a point in following it. She sees her life as her own and independent of any such beings and as we can observe in cosmere so far there was no deity that actually required everyone to worship them, they mostly don't really care. So by that logic there are no requirements that would cause her to worship a being that said being needs to fullfill. I feel that the argument Shallan makes with feelings kind of portrays this whole debate, if a person feels this closeness or whatever the feeling of the deity being there is, no logical arguments will change their mind and vice versa if the person is not feeling it, it will be extremely hard for them to be convinced by any argument. Because in the end you cannot prove or disaprove the existence of God by logic. You can show that the teachings of a religion are illogical but that's about it. It is possible that there will occur something in Jasnah's future that will change the way she feels about God (although hard to imagine since it seems she already endured a lot) and then she will become religous but I would argue that right now introducing any being would not change her mind, so there's no criteria

What do you mean an never ending atrocity? I mean Odium unbound is clearly dangerous and after winning in this system he would probably move on to the other one, but if he won the fight of Roshar wouldn't he just kill the enemy army? Like that's what war is about and with Odium's troops losing it's just that they're going to die. It's probably as simple as with Honor just wanting to stop Odium, so he just took the opposing side. He probably tried to get rid of Odium's influence of humans in which he mostly succeded, but the singers feeled betrayed by Honor focusing so much on them, which Odium used to influence them instead. I know the war is not simple singers versus humans but I believe at the beginning it could be. We have Herald who are human and the Fused who are singers. We've seen humans fighting on Odium's side and we know of singers reluctant to listen to voidspren and there's obviously Venli but the sides that started this mess and made deals with the Shards seem to be divided by the species. After all, that would be the easiest war for Odium to orchestrate simple us vs. them.

My bad, you can see that I read the Mistborn trilogy first and now see shards creating life everywhere. However I think it's still interesting to why Honor decided to support humans that much. Per that WoB, since the Healds came from Ashyn, the Oathpact and that exodus happened in a lifetime. So the breaking of the agreement had to happen rather quickily if the situation had time to escalate to a level where the Oathpact was needed. And it's also interesting that Honor decided to have a pact with the people that broke a pact they themselves agreed to. Not sure about Honor but that makes a lot of difference for me. I'm pretty sure we'll get all of the answers by the time the back five are published but it's gonna be so long and I can't help but wonder what's it all about. Especially since now it seems so much more intense than I thought it would be when I started reading the books.

If I understand the big ‘humans are voidbringers’ thing Odium created humans on Ashyn and Honor and Cultivation created the singers. But then during the subsequent Desolations (if we count the arrival of humans or maybe the moment they broke the agreement and left Shinovar as a first desolation) the Shards changed sides with Odium helping the singers and Honor and Cult aiding humans. Do we know why they decided to switch? If not, I’m curious to hear your theories. I think it’s odd for Honor to support humans since they supposedly broke the agreement and attacked the singers taking their land. That seems like an oath broken but obviously we don’t have a full story yet. On the other hand, Odium doesn’t seem to care much about anything except destroying other Shards so I don’t see why would he suddenly change his favored race unless it would help him with that or Honor changed first.

I asked the question „Does Jasnah know about Adonalsium?” Some time ago and the answer was No. But I would add „What’s Renarin’s calling?” the list as I can’t stop thinking about it

Do we know what Renarin’s Calling is? Because Adolin quite often talks how his is dueling, we know Dalinar’s is leading? But how about Renarin?